Sleaford Mods: if only their music was half as inventive as their insults

★★☆☆☆(Harbinger Sound)

You couldn’t pick a less-likely success story than Sleaford Mods, two forty-somethings making shouty punk that sounds like Frank Gallagher’s speech over the Shameless credits, only massively less optimistic. Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn play both London’s Koko and Forum this year, and while their latest album shows why they are so startling live, it doesn’t demand repeated listening. Williamson’s command of language is shocking and hilarious, his rage relentless, with insults ranging from “you silly billy” to “rip-roaring Minnie Mouse little pony munt” on Giddy on the Ciggies. It takes a special kind of mind to come up with such consistently foul surrealism. If only the music, often little more than a repeated bassline and drumbeat, was half as inventive.